Beloved ex-teacher, killed by Metro bus, wanted to 'make the world a better place'

Years after Anna Dickson graduated from Beverly Kinney’s fifth- and sixth-grade classes at Princeton City Schools, she thought to reconnect with her former teacher.

By then, Dickson had moved to New York City, was working in publishing and shot photos for Rolling Stone. She wanted to share her adventures with Kinney, who encouraged Dickson as a kid to follow her passions.

But when Dickson finally reunited with Kinney at her home in Cincinnati, the retired educator had just one question: “What are you doing to change the world?”

For Kinney, changing the world wasn’t about grand gestures or Herculean feats, but simple, everyday actions.

“I think she woke up in the morning and asked herself, ‘What am I going to do to make the world a better place?’” said John Kinney, her son.

Kinney was killed on Jan. 11 after being struck by the driver of a Cincinnati Metro bus while she was walking in a marked crosswalk at Dana Avenue and Duck Creek Road on the border of Hyde Park and Evanston. She was 87 years old.

So far, no charges have been filed against the driver, who had a suspended license at the time of the crash, though Cincinnati police are still investigating.

Originally from Toledo, Kinney grew up in a blue-collar household with three older sisters and an older brother, her son said. Inquisitive from a young age, she turned her passion for learning into a decades-long teaching career.

Before retiring in 1998, she worked as a gifted education teacher at the Princeton City School District’s Robert E. Lucas Intermediate School, where she taught her students to think critically and encouraged them to take ownership of their education.

“I think what I really enjoyed about her, even in elementary school, is I didn’t feel like she treated us like kids,” said 43-year-old Dickson, who was in Kinney’s class in the early 1990s. “She expected a lot of us. She engaged with us in a different way.”

Sarah Burkhart, another former student, said she often lacked a sense of belonging in school because of her biracial background, but Kinney’s classroom wasn’t like that.

“We were all so very different,” Burkhart, 44, said of the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity in Kinney’s class. “But she created a space where we all felt that we belonged.”

Burkhart later worked for 10 years at Mason High School, where she was part of a diversity, equity and inclusion team. She said she only recently realized how much Kinney’s teaching influenced her passion for creating inclusive spaces for students.

“I think that set the example of knowing that it was possible,” Burkhart told The Enquirer.

Outside of the classroom, Kinney was a passionate patron of the arts and dedicated her spare time to numerous charitable causes.

She was a longtime subscriber to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and even volunteered as an usher for the Ensemble Theatre in Over-the-Rhine, John Kinney said.

She had also been a dedicated patron of and donor to the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company since 2011, the theater company said in a statement.

Kinney shared her passion for learning and love of theater with her two sons, John Kinney said, adding that from a very young age, she would take him to concerts at Music Hall and other performances.

She also integrated her enthusiasm for theater into her teaching by holding performances of Shakespeare and ensuring her students were involved in every facet of the production.

The students would audition for parts, work in the backstage crew and even have a hand in creating the sets, lighting and sound effects, her son said.

Chante’ Bright, 43, who had Kinney for fifth and sixth grades in the early ‘90s, said she played a small role as one of the soldiers in Kinney’s production of Macbeth.

While Bright said she probably suffered from stage fright as a kid, she remembers the class fondly for how much Kinney worked with and believed in her students.

“She was just extremely supportive and just a fun teacher,” Bright said.

Even though Kinney dedicated her life to formal education, her son said that she considered humor to be the "highest form of intelligence."

“Humor was very important to her. The house was always full of laughter,” said John Kinney, now a 60-year-old music teacher at Monfort Heights Elementary. He realized as young as 3 years old that he loved to make his mom laugh.

“I don’t think she was real comfortable with having the light shined on her,” John Kinney said. If anything, he added, she would want to be remembered for “trying to make the world a better place in whatever way that one could do that.”

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ex-teacher killed by Metro bus wanted students to 'change the world'